Michael Leunig
Michael Leunig
Michael Leunig, typically referred to as Leunig, is an Australian cartoonist, poet and cultural commentator. His best known works include The Adventures of Vasco Pyjama and the Curly Flats series. He was declared an Australian Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia in 1999...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionCartoonist
Date of Birth2 June 1945
CountryAustralia
bring falls goodwill invented opportunity peace promote technology
Practically every technology that is ever invented is touted as being the new savior, the thing that will bring peace and goodwill to the earth, but immediately it falls into other hands who see it as the opportunity to promote the very opposite.
assimilate babies benign blissfully call complete feeling god held instead might moments perhaps poetic primal sensation
Perhaps the more benign and poetic sense of God is established when we are babies in the moments of primal joy we might call 'the epiphanies of infancy' - the sensation of being blissfully held and feeling complete and at one with everything - yet having no words or no need to say it but instead to just assimilate the feeling.
eternal indeed normality sanity surely
Sanity is surely not about normality in the statistical sense: it is about an eternal and natural idea of the healthy personality - which indeed may be a rare achievement.
desperate frantic notion
Pursuit is a rather desperate act in itself. There's something kind of frantic about the notion of pursuit.
almost offence people possibly seem type
People seem to take as much offence as they possibly can these days - it's almost a new type of greed, a new kind of road rage.
Emotional stability has not been America's gift to the world.
boys bush hid indigenous initiation males manhood ran seen stories time
The scariness of manhood to males may be symbolically seen in the many stories of indigenous Australian boys who ran away and hid in the bush as the time of initiation approached.
truth
Sometimes a witticism has no truth behind it.
beautiful brought childhood dear early friend funny guinea island life main stories tiny work worked
A dear friend of my early childhood has worked as an anthropologist in Papua New Guinea for much of her life, and from the tiny island where her main work has been focused, she has brought me many funny and beautiful stories over the years.
dreams feed music mysterious poetry
Fogs are like dreams that feed the soul, and without their mysterious embrace, childhood, courtship, poetry and the composition of music become all the more difficult.
consciousness instinct parts repression
The repression of virtuous instinct in the modern world is an incremental tragedy. Repress one instinct, and you repress many; other parts of consciousness go down, also.
billions blocks cars electronic engine explosions heaven hold hustle invisible life molecules petrol radio relentless seem signals storm trucks unable violently
The relentless invisible storm of radio signals and electronic particles, the hustle and bustle, and the billions of petrol explosions in the engine blocks of trucks and cars seem to churn up the molecules of life and heaven so violently that the beautiful fogs are unable to hold together like they once did.
fairly heard late life perils stranger talk talking teachers
As a child, I heard many warnings from teachers about the perils of talking with strangers. Yet now, fairly late in my life, I can think of not many things better than to talk with strangers. The idea of being a stranger is also very appealing.
bed beneath carpet dreamed fly great high home life looked near perfect seemed wonder
As a child, I dreamed that my bed could fly and glide and swoop and hover high over the countryside near my home while, snug and secure, I looked down in wonder at the great carpet of life that seemed so perfect beneath me.